Infrared Burnout Is Coolest Thing Ever

Thermal imaging lets us see a burnout in a whole new light.

Say you have a fun rear-wheel drive sports car with tires that are nearing the end of their tread life. What’s the best possible way of speeding up the destruction process? You guessed it! A BURNOUT! That’s exactly what Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained does to the tires of his AP1 Honda S2000. Not only does he shred some serious rubber, but he also films it with a borrowed FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) thermal camera. (Unless you have $55,000 to burn for a brand-new FLIR thermal camera, then borrowing one is the next best thing.)

We’ve all seen countless videos of cars doing burnouts, but rarely do we get to see the science that actually goes down in real time. With the FLIR camera, we get to see what kind of temperatures a tire experiences during a burnout. Within the first five seconds, temperatures rise from 19 degrees Celsius to 160, just like that. Also notice the contact patch glows intensely hot white, indicating the immense heat that’s being generated.

Nerding Out, Enthusiast-Style

Jason even tries out different tire pressures to see if it could have an effect. He then notices that the inside of the tires heat up much faster, mostly likely due to a bad alignment, which makes total sense. You can also see how the brakes are generating heat, as well. Since brake modulation is required while doing a brake stand, it comes as no surprise that the camera would detect heat from the stoppers.

Things get seriously nerdy when Jason goes split screen, showing what you would normally see versus what you see with the FLIR camera. Check out how the smoke blocks what your eyes see normally, while the thermal imaging cuts right through it, detecting the thermal radiation.